A 3 hour recovery ride sounded right . We started our ride to the local bike shop, Paolo’s bike shop in other words the Italian version of Westwood cycle.

Super organized and nice European style shop called Salvi’s .With all the connections to the local bike manufactures as well , so it looked good for us to be able to visit one later this week( maybe Colonago , Bianchi or De Rosa ??)

We are like kids in a candy store and me and Kevin ordered a pair of Sidi shoes, colors not sold in the US, the blue and white Ergo 2’s! A must have, to stand out back home in the local races. We all have our bikes looked at by the bike mechanic and he takes great care to get rid of the creaking and noises we all have in the our bikes by now, especially my bike, with stuff being loose and basically falling off! Mr. Lugiano Moreti, the owner of Paolo’s team and also a sponsor of the U23 Cyclisti Begamasca team as well, is already at the bike shop and ready to go for a ride with us. We ride past the hotel and head up towards Paolo’s house into Almenno Valley, but we take a left onto a 15 K recovery climb . The road goes up to a radio tower( Paolo old us to not use our cell phones , apparently it was a risk to get your phone fried???) and it is a nice big climb right in our back yard .We can see our hotel on the other side of he valley , a nice comforting feeling on a recovery day!

This camp’s one and only mechanical strikes Jon , the small chain ring buckles and that is the end of his ride , he limps back to the hotel in the big ring and then back to the bike store to get surgery on bike , since it is a Zipp crank it is not an easy fix with Zipp parts like this not that common around here. We continue our recovery climb and we reach the top were there is a nice lunch spot at Valcava, nice view once again , not just mountains !There is also a lake with some sunbathers at the top of the mountain, if you know what I mean and once again this camera is not that good!( I hope my wife does not read this !) After some Panini’s we head back down and decided to stop by Paolo’s house to show the guys where he lives . I beautiful place right at the bottom of the switch back we just came down ( another former Giro decent) , still an incredible view of the Valley right from his yard. Sultan was happy to see us ( the dog) as well .

We rode through the town of Sant Omobono, back towards the hotel , still plenty time left of the day to enjoy , but first we had to climb up our drive WAY once again , loved it !!